


look how long this love can hold its breath

by taizi



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Families of Choice, Feel-good, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Hugs, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: Jack takes it all in; the presence of his family, the company of a few trusted strangers, the steady beep of the heart-rate monitor, the ambient smell of medicine and disinfectant.It isn’t the Void. He doesn’t think it’s a dream. Strange and bright and not entirely familiar, but real all the same.He squeezes Sammy’s hand and resolves to follow his example. Jack isn’t letting go this time, either.
Relationships: Ben Arnold & Sammy Stevens, Sammy Stevens & Everyone, Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright
Comments: 18
Kudos: 193





	look how long this love can hold its breath

The Sammy in this hospital room is a gentle creature. All his sharp edges are worn down. He sits beside the bed and holds Jack’s hand, and even though his clothes are torn and his hair is tangled and his face is gray with exhaustion, he doesn’t let go. 

Five years, Lily had said. _Five years._

And Sammy is here, not letting go. 

The last time they spoke, Jack vacant and hurtful, Sammy with tears in his eyes, doubles as Jack’s last working memory of life before the dark. His stomach churns with nausea, remembering now what the shadows hadn’t let him see before: Sammy, struggling to help this new version of his fiance that didn’t _want_ his help, with no one to call for support because they didn’t have any family they were on speaking terms with or close friends they could trust, reaching out and reaching out and reaching out to Jack only to be turned away each time. 

“Sammy,” Jack says. It comes out hoarse, as though he’s been screaming. “I’m so sorry.”

Sammy reaches over with his unoccupied hand, smoothing his thumb against the crease in Jack’s brow. He used to do that all the time, when Jack was doing their taxes or fixing a last-minute scheduling error, easing the frustrated lines of him soft again with a simple touch. Jack’s eyes go hot with tears. 

“Don’t do that,” Sammy says quietly. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

He looks like he means it. Jack can’t make sense of that. It’s too good to be true. The whole tableau feels inches away from tipping over into uncanny valley, too much like a dream to be real life.

But before doubt can rear its head, Jack makes himself breathe. 

_Stop,_ he thinks fiercely, with all the strength he has left, the not-inconsiderable presence of mind that kept him sane in the Void. _Be here._

Sammy is holding his hand, the cool band of his engagement ring glinting under the fluorescent light. Lily is heavy in her sleep and one of her earrings is digging into Jack’s shoulder through the hospital gown. In the chair behind her is a young woman Jack doesn’t know, talking in soft undertones to the town sheriff, who’s crouched beside her chair with his hat in his hands. There’s a curly-haired man propped against Sammy’s shoulder in much the same way Lily is propped against Jack’s, fighting sleep with every slow blink. The three of them are as dirty and disheveled as Sammy is. They all look as though they’ve been through hell and back. 

Jack takes it all in; the presence of his family, the company of a few trusted strangers, the steady beep of the heart-rate monitor, the ambient smell of medicine and disinfectant. 

It isn’t the Void. He doesn’t think it’s a dream. Strange and bright and not entirely familiar, but real all the same. 

He squeezes Sammy’s hand and resolves to follow his example. Jack isn’t letting go this time, either. 

_Be here for him._

* * *

Home is a small two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a faded brick complex, and it’s where Jack goes when he’s finally discharged from the hospital. 

The main living area is a total disarray of unfolded maps and loose leafs of paper and takeout containers, but no one seems to spare the mess any mind on their way through. Emily leads the way down the hall and pushes open one of the bedroom doors. Lily and Sammy deposit Jack on a bed dressed in a rich red comforter. Ben wrings his hands in the doorway and makes noises about ordering pizza for lunch. 

“Get over here where you belong, Benny,” Emily says, not unkindly. Ben needs no further encouragement, crossing the room at a sprint and then slowing down dramatically to pick his way gingerly onto the bed, as close to Sammy as he can get. “I think we’ve had enough pizza to last us a calendar year. I’ll call Mary. She said she wanted to bring us lunch.”

Sammy lifts his head. He’s pale and gaunt and the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing in the goddamn world. Jack can’t help but stare at him, even though it makes Lily roll her eyes and mutter something that sounds like _‘some things never change.’_

“Her famous ham and biscuit casserole?” Sammy asks with more than a little hope. 

Emily tugs at Sammy’s loose ponytail playfully. “It’s only famous because you talk about it on the show every night.”

“Avoiding the question,” Ben interjects. 

“You hush.” She leans over to kiss him on the cheek, then Sammy, then Lily in quick succession. She pauses at Jack, absorbs the probably-bewildered look on his face, and settles for squeezing his hand warmly. “Get settled. I’ll call her. And make the apartment look habitable before she gets here, I suppose.”

“I’ll help,” Lily says, pushing herself off the crowded bed. “Might as well. I gotta make a call, too. I’ve kind of been putting it off. Mom is not going to _believe_ this.”

She wraps an arm around Jack’s shoulders and squeezes him hard. Sammy gets the same treatment, though it manages to look antagonistic, since it’s _them_. Ben gets an affectionate shove. And then the girls move into the main room together, talking quietly as they close the door behind them.

“Can I be real for a second?” Ben says, all wide, guileless eyes. “Just totally off-the-record real?”

Sammy sighs. Jack may be out of practice, but he thinks he can still read Sammy pretty well, and this put-upon thing he’s trying to do with his expression doesn’t fool him for a second. 

“It's probably pointless to tell you ‘no’. It has been every other time.”

“Dude,” says Ben, visibly not playing along. “You need to _sleep_.”

Worry clenches like a fist in the pit of Jack’s stomach. He thinks back on the almost-week he lived in the hospital and can’t seem to come up with even one vague recollection of Sammy so much as dozing off beside Jack’s bed.

Jack disappeared on him once. The idea that it could happen again must be a source of terror, even here, in this cozy room filled with golden afternoon sunlight. Sammy’s mind has always been something of a bear trap, liable to spring on him at any moment. His anxiety can’t have gotten any _better_ after all of this.

“Sammy,” Jack says, gripping his arm. “Didn’t I see the _sheriff_ cut you off from coffee yesterday? Don’t you think that’s a sign?”

“That was just Troy,” Sammy says, all but waving it off. “He worries.”

“He _cares_ ,” Ben contests hotly. “I’ll call him and make him make it illegal for you to get less than eight hours of sleep a night, and he’d do it. You know he would. At the very least he’d come over and make disappointed faces at you, which is practically the same thing.”

Jack likes Ben. He likes how clearly Ben telegraphs his love. It’s so loud and obvious that even someone like Sammy must be able to see it. Jack spares himself a moment of breathless gratitude that Ben is here.

“ _Illegal_ , Sammy,” Jack reiterates. 

“Wow, it’s been, like, five minutes and you two are already tag-teaming me. Fantastic.”

But his eyes are shining, like he might cry, and his smile more than makes up for the tired shadows left on his face. He looks so happy to be here, to exist in this moment, between the two of them, beneath their hands. 

“How about a quick nap before lunch?” Jack suggests. “I’m sure Lily will wake us up for food. She’s always had a gentle touch.”

Sammy laughs like it was startled out of him. Ben grins at Jack over Sammy’s shoulder, a grin that makes Jack think Ben likes him, too. 

And maybe Jack ought to be surprised that Ben lays down to nap with them, that Sammy’s arm curls snug around Ben’s back to keep him from falling off the edge of the bed, but he isn’t. He reaches over Sammy to make sure the comforter is covering Ben, too, as easily as if he’s done it a hundred times. Sammy catches Jack’s hand when he’s done, folds it against his chest, and looks at him with love.

“Thank you,” he says. He means thank you for the blanket. He means thank you for a lot more than that. 

_Five years,_ Jack thinks. That’s a lot of time to make up for. This is a good place to start.

Jack leans in to kiss him.

“Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he says softly. Sammy melts. Ben squirms with happiness, aglow at their affection. “We’ll be right here.”

Jack doesn’t sleep. He feels as though he’s slept enough for three lifetimes. He lays awake, instead, watching Sammy finally give into exhaustion, his cheek pressed against Jack’s shoulder, Ben’s head tucked under his chin. Emily peeks in some time later and smiles when she sees them. She doesn’t look surprised, either.

“Lunch is in an hour,” she whispers. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” Jack whispers back, his heart clenching at the truth of it. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”

* * *

There are a lot things Jack is struggling to wrap his mind around—King Falls is _everything_ he had hoped it would be, a paranormal hotspot where UFO abductions, ghosts and lake monsters are the norm—but somehow it’s the comparatively mundane that trips him up the most. 

Back in LA, Jack and Sammy weren’t exactly a part of a community. They got along with the guys at the station as well as they had to. They chatted in the break room, and went out for drinks when they didn’t have a decent excuse at hand to get themselves out of it, but generally they were happy just to go home. Call it an early night and shed their work personas at the door and make dinner together, touching casually and kissing often, to make up for all the opportunities they missed throughout the day. 

But Sammy is a fixture in King Falls. His finger is on the pulse of this town, he and Ben heavily involved in community affairs and local politics. Their early morning talk show is a staple, and one of the first sources the people turn to for by-the-second news and honest reporting, or even just for friendly conversation on those nights when sleep isn’t forthcoming. 

Before the shadows took him, Jack’s interest in the scenic mountain town was all his own; enthusiastic, kind of goofy, liable to make Sammy roll his eyes. It’s kind of ironic that while he never had any desire to visit this town, he’s the one who ended up carving a place for himself here.

More than anything, it’s a relief.

“I’m just glad to hear it,” Jack confides in Lily. “That he’s okay, you know?”

Lily’s face does something complicated, her mouth twisting into a frown. 

“He wasn’t, really. He is now, but he _wasn’t_ , Jack. Neither of us were. There’s a reason Arnold moved Sammy into his apartment. There’s a reason I'd camp on their couch now and then.”

Jack has no idea what his face must look like, but it causes Lily to set her cup down and reach for his arm. 

“Hey,” she says sternly. “It’s fine now. Sammy almost did something _really_ fucking stupid, and maybe if he’d been alone for the last five years, he would have. But he didn’t. He wasn’t. He’s got a lot of people here who love him an insane amount, and… and so do I.”

This is remarkably open for his sister, who has always played her cards close to her chest. It’s how Jack can tell she means it. It’s how he knows how badly he fucked up by being gone. 

Lily wasn’t a part of his life at the time he fell into the Void, but Sammy was. Sammy made his home with Jack. They made each other so many promises and Jack managed to break every one.

“ _Hey_ ,” Lily snaps. “Don’t freak out. It wasn’t your fault, and it’s over. You’re here now. So _be_ here.”

A knock on the doorway into the living room startles Jack into looking up. Ben grins at him, wearing Emily’s yellow hoodie and one of Sammy’s overly large knit hats. He looks ridiculous, and Jack’s first impulse is one of immediate, unrelenting fondness. 

“If this is a conversation about how much you love each other, or how much you love _me_ , then take your time,” Ben says glibly. “If not, then we’re going shopping. Our fridge is totally empty and I’m not okay with it. You guys, it’s been like a week since Sammy’s made overnight oats. It’s— we can’t live like this anymore. Don’t tell him I said this, but I’m at the point where I’d do things I’m not proud of for his zucchini lasagna, and I don’t even _like_ zucchini.”

Lily snorts, letting go of Jack. “You don’t like anything that’s good for you. That’s why you’re four feet tall.”

“A short joke,” Ben gasps, pressing a hand to his chest. “It’s been, like, six minutes since the last one. I was getting really worried.” 

“Get the hell out, Arnold. And buy some more of those frozen pancakes.”

“ _Hah,_ as if. We’re talking fresh produce and that shaved deli meat you have to get at the counter, and, like, I don’t know, almond milk.” Ben bounces on the balls of his feet, thrumming with energy. “Jack in the Box _Jesus_ , I’ve never been this excited about almond milk. Coming, Jack?”

It’s absolutely unsurprising that Sammy is the one who does the bulk of the cooking, because that’s kind of always been his love language. Just because Jack has missed out on the last five years doesn’t mean they haven’t happened for everyone else. 

A little bittersweet, but also something of a relief: Sammy still makes overnight oats, probably in those little mason jars that are such a pain to get clean. The life Jack is coming back to isn’t so different from the one he was taken from. 

“Yeah, I’ll come along,” Jack says, pushing himself out of his chair. He can’t help ruffling Ben’s perpetually-ruffled hair as they collect Sammy from the living room. There’s a lot he has to be grateful for; a lot of people he has to thank. 

Since the girls did the cleaning, they gleefully wash their hands of the shopping. Lily promises to keep Emily company, with a kissy face that makes Ben’s face flush with rage that’s probably only partly a joke, and Sammy steers him out the door with the evident prowess of someone who’s been on the job for years. 

It’s late when they finally head out. Sammy and Ben are used to keeping odd hours because of the show, and Jack’s sleeping schedule is all kinds of messed up these days. Sammy smiles at Jack as they fall into step down the sidewalk and reaches for his hand, threading their fingers together as easy as breathing.

They walk all five blocks like that, like there’s nothing to hide. Jack’s heart pounds the whole time. 

The supermarket is well-lit, a beacon in the fading orange dusk. The sheriff’s pickup truck is in the parking lot and they run into him in the freezer aisle. Troy is broad-shouldered and barrel-chested but his face is absurdly kind. When he sees the three of them, he breaks into a grin.

“Well, shoot!” He sets his basket down and hurries over, clapping Jack on the shoulder as warmly as if they’ve been friends all their lives. “It’s a pleasure to see you out and about, Jack! How you feelin’?”

“Better every day,” Jack says honestly, smiling back at Troy like a knee-jerk reaction. “Thanks for everything, man.”

Troy stopped in at the hospital every day, on his way to work or on his way home. He’d usually come bearing food; a bag of burgers, or deli sandwiches, and usually something for Jack, too, if the nurses let him get away with it. It’s obvious that he’s one of those people Lily mentioned; one of the people who were here for Sammy when he… wasn’t okay.

Troy moves on to haul Sammy and Ben into a playful embrace at the same time, one in each arm. They’re totally blocking the aisle but it’s late enough that they’re practically the only ones in the store.

“Now, what’s this I hear about you not sleepin’, Sammy Stevens?” Troy asks sternly once he’s released them both.

Sammy turns on his heel to glare daggers at Ben, who suddenly decides the frozen broccoli is the most interesting thing in the store. 

“Hey now, don’t you go lookin’ at him like that. I asked Ben to keep me in the know. Lord knows you take a lot of looking after.” 

“I’m fine, Troy,” Sammy says in the tone of someone who has said it a thousand times. “It’s just been a rough few weeks.”

“A rough few years,” Jack interjects, not unkindly. 

He wants to take Sammy’s hand again, but he’s abruptly, irrationally afraid to. Jack has spent the majority of his life in the closet, and just because people in this town know him as Sammy’s missing fiance doesn’t mean he’s mentally overcome that fear of being found out. 

Jack wonders how Sammy did it. He makes a mental note to ask. 

For now, he reminds himself of Troy’s kindness and the role he played in bringing Jack out of the dark, he reminds himself of Ben’s easy love and immediate acceptance, he reminds himself of the _five years_ he missed out on, and it’s enough. For now, it’s enough.

He takes Sammy’s hand. Sammy looks like he knows at least half of how hard it was, and the stubborn lines of his body relent.

“Ugh,” he mutters, squeezing Jack’s fingers. “Everyone’s ganging up on me again. This is gonna get old.”

“Sure, in about a billion years,” Ben says cheerfully. 

They all do the rest of their shopping together, and Sammy only lets go of Jack’s hand for a few minutes at a time, to pick through tomatoes and heads of lettuce and all the other things he’s particular about. Everything else is Ben’s job. 

When they’ve finished at the self-checkout, Ben says, “Troy, you wanna come over for dinner?”

“Nah, I gotta get home to the missus,” Troy tells them. “But we’re meeting up at Ron’s on Saturday for a barbecue, and y’all are gonna be there if I gotta pick you up myself. Now, do you boys want a ride home? You got enough grub there to feed an army.”

They pile their groceries into the bed of the pickup, and Ben calls shotgun, clambering into the front passenger seat of the double cab. Sammy rolls his eyes so hard Jack is distantly worried he’s going to sprain something, and climbs into the back passenger seat behind him. 

Troy stops Jack from following with a gentle hand on his elbow. 

“I just wanted to say something,” he says, his voice gentling so they’re not overheard. “I know this has been a big ol’ mess, and I’m sorry about the particulars of why you came to be here, and I know there’s a lot you’ve gotta get yourself used to before you can start thinking of calling King Falls home. But…” Troy rubs the back of his head, looking as though he’s worried about picking out the right words, for all that he’s utterly sincere. “We all think of Sammy as one of our own, y’know? And now that you’re here, you’re one of ours, too. If there’s ever anything you need, or someone you need to talk to ‘bout something you can’t bring to your family for whatever reason, you come right to me, and I’ll do my best to make it right. That boy loves you somethin’ awful, and it ‘bout killed me to find out how badly he’s been hurtin’ without you. I don’t want him, or you, to hurt like that again. There, I said my piece.”

Jack blinks rapidly, dimly aware of the tears in his eyes. That’s probably the kindest thing anyone has ever said to him, and for no other reason than they wanted to. Troy shuffles his feet and looks like he’s only _barely_ not reacting to Jack’s tears, and Jack has a pretty good idea what that reaction is shaping up to be. 

Jack wipes his eyes on his sleeve, and makes a vague gesture with his other hand. Troy says, “Aw, hell,” and hugs him. 

“I hope them are happy tears,” the sheriff adds, sounding a little choked up himself. 

“Yeah,” Jack muffles against his jacket. “Sorry. Thank you. For everything. For Sammy, and for—for everything.”

It’s hardly enough, but for now, it’s all Jack can do.

* * *

On Saturday evening, they head out for a barbecue and end up at the Bait & Tackle shop down by the lake. Jack is confused up until he climbs out of the car, and sees the picnic tables all dressed up, and the busy grill roasting burgers and brats, and the _mountain_ of a man in cut-off shorts who comes bearing down upon them the second they arrive.

Sammy squawks as Ron Begley sweeps him into a crushing embrace, and Jack thinks, _Ah._

“It’s about damn time you come see me,” Ron says. “Ben, get your ass over here.”

Ben submits to his hug willingly, and when it’s Emily’s turn she leans up to kiss Ron on the cheek. Jack steps forward because Ron looks willing to drag him in by the collar if he doesn’t, and Ron tugs him into a one-armed hug that feels much gentler than Sammy’s had looked. Lily dodges the whole scene with a jaunty salute and follows the smell of the food toward the picnic tables.

“Troy told me he already said most of what we’re feelin’,” Ron says gruffly. “But I’m gonna second it. This boy of yours has never done anything but stick his neck out for the rest of us, even when he was hurtin’ so hard he didn’t know up from down, and I’ll be damned if I don’t return the favor.”

“Ron,” Sammy interjects, coloring. 

“You hush or I’ll make you go out on a boat to feed Kingsie her lunch,” Ron says shortly. “I’ve been waitin’ to meet Jack for ages and I got plenty of things to say.”

“Can’t it wait till after supper, Ron?” Emily asks politely, her low, sweet voice a weapon she’s happy to wield for her friends at the drop of a hat. “We haven’t eaten all day to save room.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ron doesn’t look fooled in the slightest, but he waves them on with a pointed look at Jack that promises a conversation later. Jack finds himself looking forward to it. 

The next time they’re accosted it’s by an old man named Herschel, who blusters and cusses and does a lot of complaining about the general state of things, but somehow in the midst of all that he manages to get the point across that Sammy and Ben are ‘his boys’ and he’s happy that Jack has returned. 

Two young kids run ahead of Mary and Tim Jensen, attaching themselves to Sammy at the waist and talking over one another, only peeling away when they spot Ben standing behind him. Emily explains quietly that Sammy and Ben did a lot of babysitting for Mary after Tim was taken by the rainbow lights, on top of everything else they did. 

Mary pats Jack on the cheek with one weathered hand, someone who understands how hard it is to lose the love of your life into thin air, and kindly doesn’t say anything that would make Jack cry in front of everyone. Sammy returns her casserole dish, waxing poetic about that ham bake she brought over earlier in the week as he does, and instigates this hug himself. 

Troy and his wife Loretta wave Jack over to their table, and he goes gladly, relieved to see a familiar face in this crowd of well-meaning strangers. 

“They mean well, but we’re all so excited to finally meet you they can't help but turn into a mob,” Loretta says apologetically. She holds up a can of beer in one hand and a can of lemonade in the other, both beading with condensation from their time in a drink cooler at her feet, and Jack takes the lemonade. “You just wait until everyone’s stuffing their faces, and talk will turn to somethin’ else.”

She’s right. Once all the food has been brought over on big serving trays and everyone is sitting in front of heaping paper plates, Herschel says, “When are you two gonna start up your racket on the radio again?” 

“Soon, probably,” Ben says easily enough, leaning bodily over Emily to steal a pickle off of Sammy’s plate. “Sammy still has separation anxiety, so Jack’ll probably have to camp out in the studio with us.” 

Sammy flips him off, and Emily says, “As if you weren’t the exact same way with me, Benny.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Jack interjects. “I love radio work.”

“That’s right, you produced Sammy’s show back in LA,” Troy says. “I’ll bet you miss it, huh? You know, there’s bound to be some work for you at the station if you want it.” 

At the mention of LA, Jack thinks of something he’s been meaning to ask about. 

On the way home, he says, “Whatever happened to our house?”

The car goes quiet. Emily darts a glance at the two of them in the rearview mirror; Ben turns fully around in his seat. Sammy looks a little thrown by the question, and more than a little uncomfortable. 

“Your house? In California?” Ben asks. 

“It’s still there,” Sammy says. “It didn’t _go_ anywhere. Most of our stuff is in storage, though.” As if sensing imaginary judgement from his friends, Sammy’s shoulders hunch and he goes on, “What was I supposed to do? Sell it? I—we—still have a mortgage.”

“You’ve kept it all this time?” Jack asks. He’s not sure what he’s feeling. “Did you want to go back there someday?”

Ben’s grip on his seat goes white-knuckled. Emily turns the radio down. Lily got a ride home with Katie, which turned out to be a fortunate thing, or this conversation might have gone even worse.

Sammy says, “I want—” and falters. He seems to have to muster his courage, as if being honest with his wants in front of the three people who love him most in the world is a feat of strength and daring. “I want to stay in King Falls.” 

It almost sounds like an apology. He looks sidelong at Jack, as if he’s sorry they ended up here, even though it’s Jack who started them down this road in the first place. 

“There are people here I’d be totally lost without,” he goes on. “And I—and Ben is my—there’s not a good word for what Ben is to me. I don’t want to go anywhere without him.”

Jack’s heart is up in his throat. He turns Sammy’s face towards his, stroking his jawline with the pad of his thumb.

“Hey, baby, it’s okay. If this is where you belong, then it’s where I belong, too. No questions asked.” He waits until the tension has bled from Sammy’s spine, until the lines of stress are gone from his face, to add, “I got to feed a lake monster today. That changes a man.”

Ben laughs, loud and bright. Sammy reacts predictably.

“You went out on a boat with Ron and dumped some dog food into the water. At best you fed a bunch of opportunistic fish.”

“I’m just saying, I’m completely sold on King Falls,” Jack tells him with a grin. “Even if meeting all your friends didn’t do the trick, Kingsie would have.”

Later, Jack will ask why Sammy kept the house if it wasn’t for a place they could someday return to. 

Sammy will go quiet for a few minutes, eyes focused on something he’s not really seeing. He’ll be twisting his engagement ring around on his finger. He’ll finally admit that both of their names were on the house. When he got a letter in the mail from the bank, it was a little reminder that Jack had been real. Their life together had been real. The house was proof of what Sammy used to have, and he didn’t want to give it up. 

He needed the reminders, he’ll say. He wasn’t okay. 

The bedroom is quiet and dark, but not in a way that inspires any lingering fear of the Void. This apartment is a comfort, the last safe bastion on a crumbling wall, and Sammy is right beside him, hair a messy halo around his head, eyes wide and shining in the low light from the window. 

“Actually, can you, um,” Sammy says. His voice is so quiet that Jack might have missed it if he wasn’t looking at him, if their faces weren’t inches apart. “Can you tell me you love me? Please? I know you do, I _know_ , but I want—I need to—”

Five years in the Void wasn’t as painful as this. For a moment, Jack can only stare at him, _aching._

When he moves, there’s a split-second of fear that darts across Sammy’s face like an animal startled across a road, an aborted motion of his hand as though he’d reach out to stop Jack from leaving him if it would do any good. 

Jack _hates_ that fear on his face, _hates_ that there’s any reason for it. 

He rolls Sammy underneath him, the weight of his body pressing Sammy’s into the mattress; the way they used to lay when Sammy’s anxieties were tearing his mind to shreds, when he needed that tether to what was present and what was real. 

The air goes out of Sammy. His hands slide up Jack’s waist and under his T-shirt, pressing into the small of his back. His next breath shudders. 

How long has he needed to hear it?

“I _do_ love you,” Jack tells him, more certain about that then he is about literally anything else in the world. He kisses Sammy, long and deliberate, until he can hear Sammy’s pounding pulse begin to slow. “I love you more than anything in the world. I’m sorry you went so long without hearing it,” he goes on, mouth moving against Sammy’s lips, feeling the tears on Sammy’s face, feeling his knees come up to bracket Jack’s body even closer. “I’m sorry you had to wonder. I’ll tell you a hundred times a day from now on. I love you, Sammy Stevens. I’m going to marry you.”

Sammy sobs, and frees his hands to throw his arms around Jack’s neck, and holds him close. He must have been dying to hold him this way for so long. Jack goes on kissing him wherever he can reach, his cheek, his brow, his jaw, the soft space behind his ear. 

“I love you,” Jack vows. “I do.”

* * *

During breakfast a few weeks later, they’re eating in the living room because there’s a bunch of mail on the table no one wanted to deal with. The overnight oats taste exactly the same as Jack remembers and he savors every bite. 

Emily clears her throat, sets her food aside, and produces a folder. 

“What’s up, Em?” Ben asks. 

He and Sammy are both crammed into the armchair, because they’re children and couldn’t agree who got to sit there. Ben uses his proximity to steal blueberries out of Sammy's oats, even though he had insisted on peanut butter for himself when Sammy put them together yesterday. Despite his lengthy complaints, Sammy has an arm looped around Ben to keep him from falling.

Jack loves them both an absurd amount. 

“I’ve been looking into real estate,” Emily says without preamble. “A house big enough for our family, with room to grow.” 

“Ohh!” Ben says, lighting up. He tries to wriggle in excitement and only succeeds in elbowing Sammy in the stomach. “That’s a _great_ idea! We should have thought of that sooner!”

Sammy darts a quick look at Jack, assessing his reaction.

“I helped pick them out,” he says gently. Sammy’s smile is a shaky, delighted thing. 

“There are actually a few options that might suit us,” Emily says, laying out photos on the coffee table pragmatically. She’s biting down on a smile, obviously excited by the prospect of a home together, one that’s equally for each of them. “Jack and I put a smiley on the back of the one we liked best.”

It’s the one that Sammy and Ben gravitate towards, too. A handsome split-level four-bedroom house out by Sweetzer Forest, with a vaulted living room, wide bay windows and a furnished basement. There was a big fireplace that Jack could already imagine spending long evenings in front of, and a roomy kitchen for Sammy to work his magic in, and space for Lily when she inevitably makes her way back to Washington every other weekend. 

And maybe, someday, their family would be even bigger. 

Ben trades one of those speaking looks with Sammy, flips the paper over, and hoots when he sees the little red smiley. He’s always all-in when it comes to the four of them, always enthusiastic to talk about a future that keeps them together. 

“When can we go see it?” he asks eagerly. “I know you, Em. You made an appointment, didn’t you?”

She laughs, folding her hands over her heart. “Of course I did, Benny. We can go see it this afternoon.”

“Whose names are going on the house?” Sammy asks, flipping through additional pictures of the floor plan. The fact that he’s already darting ahead to the particulars is proof enough that he’s invested in the idea, too. “Usually they only allow two.”

“That’s heteronormative and I won’t stand for it,” Ben announces. “They’ll sign all of us or I’ll call the cops.”

Sammy says, dryly, “You can’t just use Troy to harangue mortgage lenders into a nontraditional loan agreement.” 

“Troy would volunteer!”

Jack has a solid grasp on the shape of things in this town, so he says, “And if _that_ didn’t work, we could just call in Herschel.” 

Ben and Sammy are both startled into laughter at the idea of setting that cantankerous old man on some poor, unsuspecting real estate agent, and Emily meets Jack's eyes from her side of the couch. Her expression is fierce with love when she reaches for Jack's hand, and he takes it firmly. 

_God_ , Jack thinks, _it's so good to be here._

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve hoarded  
> your name in my mouth for months. my throat  
> is a beehive pitched into the river. look!  
> look how long this love can hold its breath.
> 
> —sierra demulder, _your love finds its way back_


End file.
